The Blame Game
by ReginaCaelum
Summary: When your life loses its sun, who can keep you in orbit? AU, TouRin.
1. Chapter 1

Here's Roxi, back with a new story! Another TouRin, of course. This one is going to be angsty-romancey, which I love writing.

Of course, I'll not be giving up _A Time of Firsts_, it'll just have less frequent updates. But never fear!

Without further ado, please enjoy!

Awaken

XX

She wakes in white. The brightness of the florescent lighting startles her eyes; immediately her pupils shrink, revealing dark blue eyes nearly black that serve to make her already pale skin look nearly translucent. Her hair, jet black and just brushing the bottom of her shoulders, serves to heighten this image. Pale pink lips, chapped from the elements, separate and she clears her throat, glogged with exhaustion. As she takes in her surroundings (bland white-gray square room except for the large window to her left that looks out to a garden, think blanket and backless robe thing, hard pillow) from her lying down position in the cold bed, she becomes aware of two things: one, she is covered in bandages, and the spot that hurts the worst is in the left side of her abdomen, and two, there's a constant beeping sound, which, combined with the washout room, can only mean…

_Oh no…_she rolls her head to the right and comes face-to-face with a large needle sticking out of the inside of her elbow connected to a tube attached to a bag of clear liquid. She looks away, closes her eyes, bile rising in her throat. She hates needles, always has, even the ones Yuzu used for sewing, Yuzu always teased her about that…

_Yuzu! _Tired eyes fly open, mind suddenly racing with questions. Where is her sister? Why is she in this hospital room? She thinks back, tries to remember why she would need healing in the first place, and is abruptly alarmed to realize that she has no recollection of anything pas…she digs deeper, dark eyebrows furrowing in concentration. There! Her last memory is hugging her twin after a soccer game, brother and father cheering in the background, silent but obviously happy best friend at her side.

She frowns suddenly, jerking out of the blurry memory, as she feels her heart speed up, but she is soon distracted by the shifting of clothes announcing another's person in her little room. She blinks and focuses on the arrival: a beautiful woman who can't be more than thirty-five, with blue eyes too old for her youthful heart-shaped face and long black hair braided down her back. She wears a lab coat and carries a clipboard, and carries an air of confidence and ease and kindness. She says in a soft voice, "I am glad you are awake. Can you please tell me your name and birthday?"

"I am Kurosaki Karin," she answers in a steady voice, "I am fifteen, my birthday is May 6th, and I am a sophomore at Karakura High."

Unohana writes something down on her clipboard. "Very good. Can you move your left ring finger for me, please?"

After a series of small exercises that all involve moving one of her extremities, Karin is able to sit up gingerly after the doctor removes the IV. Eventually Karin has to ask.

"Why am I here?"

Unohana's face suddenly looks more lined than it should, age finally catching up with the apparent wisdom in her eyes. "You…and your family were in a severe car accident. Your elder brother, sister, and father are all dead," her voice is deep with loss, although she didn't even know the Kurosaki family. "I'm sorry to say, but you are the last member of your family."

Pity and sympathy meet numbness and shock. Karin can not want to comprehend, refuses to comprehend. The words hang in the air, like needles pushing into her ears, they must be heard. She tries to block them out, but still they persist, pushing and pushing until the pain is too great. Suddenly a huge weight presses down on her, and she can't breathe; she sees the doctor rush out of the room, but she can't hear anything, just before the world goes dark, she sees Yuzu smiling at her.

Then Karin goes under.

XX

Ooh...cliffie! This is just a sort of prologue that introduces Karin, but in the next chapter we'll find out the details of her accident and where she'll go from here. And of course, Hitsugaya comes in ^^ It's already written, but I shan't post until I know if this is good or not! So please do review!


	2. Chapter 2

Hello, all! I'm so glad I got so much encouragement for this story; thanks SO much to all who reviewed.

Blink

XX

She is floating. Eyes closed, eagle-spread, water caressing every inch of her porcelain skin, but sensations stop there; her mind is blissfully empty of any and all thought. For a moment, everything goes away, and Karin is free.

_Free…_

XX

Then oxygen hits her senses like a brick wall and feeling floods back to her nerves at the speed of fire burning paper. She feels herself being pushed roughly back to the surface, with feeling and emotion and color and for a moment, she is so very, very tempted to let herself float back down.

But she doesn't. She lets herself be carried, and little by little, details sharpen through the thick haze of water.

XX

She inhales loudly, eyes flying open only to be held down by a tall, silver-haired nurse holding an oxygen mask firmly to the patient in the bed.

"She's awake!" Unohana's voice, more urgent than Karin remembers it being. With wide eyes, she hears a scrawny black-haired boy read measurements and readings and numbers from the equipment by her bed, words she doesn't catch. Karin tries to struggle, get away from all this tension, but she can't, she's held down, her limbs feel like lead, and she's just so _tired_…

Dr. Unohana notices the tension in her body and says gently, "Stop struggling, Karin-san. You needn't worry, you are safe here." For some reason, Karin just utterly _trusts _this woman, trusts her to take care of her. And so Karin relaxes, eyes barely open, still trying to take in everything but trying to melt into the bed as well. Her heartbeat slows, as does the beeping on the machines. Eventually the doctors are satisfied, and the tall lady with silver hair and the short boy sweep out, off to save someone else's life.

"Would you like to sit up?" Unohana asks softly. Mute, Karin nods weakly, and soon her mechanized bed tilts her up, giving her a different view of her room, a more open one, and tries to take full stock of her injuries: aside from the all-over bandaging, her left ankle is raised, right wrist is in a thick cast, there's lots of gauze on her left abdomen, and a long scratch on her face from the middle of her left cheek to the bottom of her jaw covered by more bandages. She can see stains of blood on her hospital gown by her torso injury, but it feels freshly bandaged. She looks at Unohana, unable to speak due to the oxygen mask blocking her mouth, but tries to ask with her eyes. Apparently, the doctor has seen this before, so she explains, "I believe you were so shocked by the news of your family, you hyperventilated and passed out. However, it was more physical than that; I had to call Nurses Kotetsu and Yamada in here because you weren't waking up. Your body is just so weak from the drugs and from being in a coma for so long."

Questions fill her mind, expected, she thinks, but she's surprised to find no shock or agony in her body from the news. Instead, there's just…nothing. But before she can dwell on the feeling, or lack thereof, Unohana speaks once more, telling her that there's a young man waiting to see her, with white hair, and that he's rather impatient, especially after seeing the other doctors rushing to see her and would Karin-san like to see him. Karin eagerly nods, wanting desperately to see a familiar face in this hall of whiteness. The sweet doctor nods and sweeps off, but not before saying that Karin can take the mask off only if she keeps it around her neck in case she gets overexcited again.

When Unohana walks back in, all she sees is a blur of white hair as Hitsugaya Toushirou practically flies to his friend's bed and envelopes her in a gentle, loving hug. He cradles her, careful not to crush or hurt her, but it's a _real _hug, not one given out of sympathy or shyness. She hugs him back just as tightly, despite her only being able to use her left arm; eventually the two part and, feeling like an intruder, Unohana departs after reminding Karin that she is only a push of a button away.

Hitsugaya gently sits on her bed, still holding her hand gently, eyes probing her various injuries. She smiles, seeing the normal routine of protectiveness from her friend. "So how've you been this wonderful summer break of ours?" She only just realized that it's the last two weeks of her break, and she's stuck in a _hospital _instead of out playing soccer.

He raises an eyebrow and shrugs, eyes still holding hers. "Worried about you." It's the truth, the minute his foster father told him that his best friend was in the hospital, Karin was all he could think about—well, more than usual.

Blue eyes roll skyward even as hands form fists unconsciously. "Well, I'm _so _honored the stoic Hitsugaya would show emotion for little old me." She is surprised by the bitterness there is in the back of her mouth, although she never meant to hurt him.

He sighs. "Sometimes I don't know why I bother with you."

"Because you love me," she teases, drawing the O out.

"Whatever." And neither of them question which type of love it is.

There's a halt in the banter; silence seeps through the cracks. Karin stares blankly at the mass of get-well wishes on the metal table at the foot of her bed: flowers, chocolates, stuffed animals, and cards. All for her, even the stuff that looks like it belongs in Yuzu's room.

_Yu. _She breaks the silence. "Tell me what happened." Her voice holds no desire to know, no inquisitive askance, but just bleak duty, duty to know how she became the last Kurosaki.

He pauses in his absentminded stroking of her hand and takes a deep breath. He has no desire to tell her, but knows she deserves to know. "You were driving back to Karakura after the tournament. About ten miles away, some druggie named Ulquiorra Cifer came off a high while driving and his car crashed into yours pretty much head-on, killing your father and brother. The car flipped several times down a pretty steep hill, and Yuzu hit her head on a window and was instantly killed. Just from the initial crash, you hurt your ankle, which you didn't realize at the time, it's broken badly by the way, fractured seven ribs, got a major concussion, and got too many miscellaneous cuts and bruises to count. Also, your wrist was fractured, but you were in shock, and it…well, the bones came out of the skin. I guess you didn't realize Yuzu was…gone, so you tried to dig her out of the wreckage of both cars, they were pretty twisted around each other. Eventually, I think you passed out, and landed on a pile of glass. That's how you got a piece in your stomach and face." His fingers ghost over said injuries, but Karin is dazed at hearing the story, and does not feel the normal racing of her heart like when he usually touches her. "Anyway, that's the doctor's and police's report. They said you don't remember anything…?" His voice trails off in a question, and he only speaks again when she simply shakes her head. "You went into surgery but the doctors decided to put you in a coma, and you were out about two days, give or take a few hours. The doctors say it's a miracle that you woke up so fast, and were able to retain so many functions."

"Yeah, a miracle. That my family is dead. That's just great." Anger and bitterness lace her words, not at him, not at anyone in particular, but at the world for taking her family from her. She stares at the ceiling, trying to lose herself in the cracks and complicity of the cardboard.

Looking at her, trying to accept but not yet willing to, wrapped in bandages and fighting spirit dulled, it hurts. For Hitsugaya, who has lost his mother, this is almost a brutal repeat of watching his sister begin her descent into darkness; but he has more hope in Karin, who has always had more ferocity than Momo. But even for the most brave, or reckless, or kind, or compassionate of people, death is something that hard to know about and even harder to accept when it happens to you. Hitsugaya looks at Karin and knows not where her path where take her (though he has a general idea), but he promises himself that he will always be there to back her up.

They sit in silence somewhere between comfortable and depressing for almost an hour before Unohana jerks them out of their trances and reminds Hitsugaya visiting hours are over in fifteen minutes. He grabs the bag he sat down (read: threw) when he rushed in to see Karin. It's her favorite black oil-canvas tote with cartoon owls and trees and flowers all over it. "Okay, I went by your house and grabbed a bunch of stuff for you to do, since it looks like you'll be here for a couple days at least. Here's all those books you've wanted to borrow from me in the past year, your Sudoku book, a package of pencils, notebook and sketchbook and iPod."

Karin grins weakly, still recovering from the news. "Thanks."

He nods in understanding, squeezes her undamaged hand, and departs.

XX

It's late that night when Karin finally admits defeat and grabs one of the stuffed animals and tries to fall asleep. All she manages is four hours of light dozing. As the morning light creeps past the blinds, she sighs and murmurs aloud, "What am I going to do." And maybe it's a hallucination from the drugs combined with the lack of sleep, but Karin swears she sees her brother standing next to her bed, scoffing at her.

"Look at you, Karin. I know you're stronger than this." He says it not unkindly, but firmly. "You will face pain, yes, but I _know _you can overcome it." Smiles at her, one of the rare, true ones. "I believe in you, sister."

Eyelids close over her sight, and Ichigo is lost, but his words stay with her. Right before Karin falls into oblivion, she slurs, "Promise, Ichi-nii."

XX

And the plot unfolds...sorta. :) Hope you enjoyed, and PLEASE review on your way out. I really do need to be told how I'm doing, y'know.


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